Home automation

[Noisy noise annoys]

Can't speak for the other things, but lighting.

The best? Lutron Homeworks. But you have to pay for it. Lutron tends to be 4x the price of their competitors, but they hold massive market share (in the US in both consumer and commercial markets) and quality is far better than the rest.

My source is that I used to commission Lutron systems, and did an upgrade to Michael Keatons homeworks system

HomeWorks | Lutron

Discover Lutron HomeWorks for the most uncompromising home automation projects - offering the ultimate design freedom throughout the entire home.

www.lutron.com

Lutron it is!

 

[Noisy noise annoys]

I don’t have a wall mounted control pad tbh, use either Siri, my phone/iPad or Apple Watch to control things ad hoc. Also all alerts etc come through on them.
The lights and blinds have self adhesive / magnetic remote controls you can place adjacent to regular switches. That’s about the only thing I need to use for what I have put side of phone / Siri.

So you just “hey Siri turn on ABBA”?

 

[degsy]

Its basically a house that runs on auto.

It learns your patterns and puts lights on, turns light off, puts heating on and basically controls the house for you.

Proper Skynet.

I looked into, but it seems like a lot of hard work just to not use light switches.

Given the basic female temperature is; 'it's too hot - it's too cold' like a kin strobe light, before long your little A.I. mate will blow a fuse

 

[degsy]

So you just “hey Siri turn on ABBA”?

Yep - no wires, Bluetooth.
I've only gone that far - no speaker wires, 1 portable rechargeable bose speaker about 8" x 5" x 2".
You can take it anywhere loud enough to have the neighbours complaining...not that I'd do that.
Hey google turn on outside lights is the next step

 

[Rita_Poon]

Yep - no wires, Bluetooth.
I've only gone that far - no speaker wires, 1 portable rechargeable bose speaker about 8" x 5" x 2".
You can take it anywhere loud enough to have the neighbours complaining...not that I'd do that.
Hey google turn on outside lights is the next step

For instance, could I pop round yours around midnight and speak to google through the letter box "hey google turn everything on to max volume in 10 seconds" then scarper and wait for the fireworks?

 

[nsno-chris]

Several Homepods and Apple TVs. Not sure if one acts as the main unit.

I migrated from Homekit due to the lack of automations. Went over to HomeAssistant as the back end, with certain scenes (such as good night) acting on the front end with Siri. Also, couldn't be arsed with the amount of hubs required

The difference is night and day, the automations via Node Red jut blows away anything that HomeKit can do. I have it linked to my Plex account, so if playing a movie it'll turn the lights off, if I pause the movie it'll set the lights to X% until it restarts again then it will switch off. The other big one with using HA is the ability add a lot of the devices like clicksmart light switches ( and plug sockets - so no more people switching the hard switch off and kicking it off the network and messing with other automations. Theses linked with geofencing just shuts the entire house down when nobody is

Bought a couple of Thread products (nanoleaf and eve); bought they are very unstable, especially the nanoleaf ones

 

[degsy]

For instance, could I pop round yours around midnight and speak to google through the letter box "hey google turn everything on to max volume in 10 seconds" then scarper and wait for the fireworks?

Nah, it's a bit voice and choice of words sensitive, for some reason mrs d can't get it to play her crap.
I say something like...
'It plays Free Fallin by Tom Petty',
it responds
'playing Free Fallin by Tom Petty from your Spotify account and Tom does his thing.
@Noisy noise annoys
Edit; remember though, these things are always listening, every so often it picks up a word or sound from the tv - and frightens the life out of me be saying...sorry, I didn't quite get that.
One time it just started playing a random song, probably based on something it heard on the TV.

You say 'shiz' and in 10 mins later you'll have an Ad for a shovel pop up on here

 

[Rita_Poon]

it rubs the lotion on it's skin or else it get's the hose again...

 

[Bedfordblue]

I migrated from Homekit due to the lack of automations. Went over to HomeAssistant as the back end, with certain scenes (such as good night) acting on the front end with Siri. Also, couldn't be arsed with the amount of hubs required

The difference is night and day, the automations via Node Red jut blows away anything that HomeKit can do. I have it linked to my Plex account, so if playing a movie it'll turn the lights off, if I pause the movie it'll set the lights to X% until it restarts again then it will switch off. The other big one with using HA is the ability add a lot of the devices like clicksmart light switches ( and plug sockets - so no more people switching the hard switch off and kicking it off the network and messing with other automations. Theses linked with geofencing just shuts the entire house down when nobody is

Bought a couple of Thread products (nanoleaf and eve); bought they are very unstable, especially the nanoleaf ones

It’s something I would like to get deeper into but just can’t find the time / inclination, but you’ve already piqued my interest in Node Red.

 

[Bedfordblue]

So you just “hey Siri turn on ABBA”?

Pretty much, typical voice command being ‘hey Siri, play abba in kitchen <or room(s) of choice>. Same applies to volume control and skipping songs or specifying a particular track.
That’s purely an apple HomePod and Apple Music subscription function though.
Same type of commands work for lights (on / off / dim%) or if I want to turn my TV on (and launch an Apple TV linked channel)
But that’s the same as Alexa and Google Home I assume albeit their version of Siri is.
i can view my security cameras on the TV through Apple TV too and assume I can summon them them to display on command to but I’ve never actually tired that tbh!

 

[RAFUH]

You don’t need to, but you (or others) might want to for geofencing so if you go out it will turn it off (if you want it to) so you aren’t heating an empty home.

That's why I have the temp settings programed on the thermostat. It changes for when I'm at work, overnight temps etc.

 

[Dylan]

Lutron it is!

If you wanted a cheaper, open source way, Linus Tech Tips has a series on his new house. He completely renovated it and included as much open source automation as he possibly could. Its at least entertaining!

 

[Noisy noise annoys]

Pretty much, typical voice command being ‘hey Siri, play abba in kitchen <or room(s) of choice>. Same applies to volume control and skipping songs or specifying a particular track.
That’s purely an apple HomePod and Apple Music subscription function though.
Same type of commands work for lights (on / off / dim%) or if I want to turn my TV on (and launch an Apple TV linked channel)
But that’s the same as Alexa and Google Home I assume albeit their version of Siri is.
i can view my security cameras on the TV through Apple TV too and assume I can summon them them to display on command to but I’ve never actually tired that tbh!

OK, very interesting

Hadn't realised it was Apple music NOT spotify which my whole fam have.